Galway Bay fm newsroom - Tuam historian Catherine Corless has been hailed a "hero to this nation" in the Dáil for her work investigating the Tuam Mother and Baby Home.
Taoiseach Micheal Martin, Labour leader Alan Kelly, Tanaiste Leo Varadkar, and Galway East Deputy Sean Canney paid tribute to her work this afternoon.
It followed a formal apology from the Taoiseach to those who were placed in mother and baby homes.
Speaking in the Dáil, he said the final report of the Mother and Baby Home Commission lays bare the failures of church and state.
He acknowledged the unacceptable treatment of women and children was as a direct result of how the state acted.
He further stated that the women should never have been there in the first place, and were only there, stripped of their rights, because of the wrongs of others.
The Taoiseach said it is deeply distressing that the high mortality rates were known at the time, yet there was no state response.
And he acknowledged that the work done by Catherine Corless in Tuam led directly to the establishment of the Mother and Baby Home Commission.
